They tell me the angels are hovering, ready to carry her home. I keep telling myself that there’s a party being planned and that the great cloud of witnesses is eagerly watching, but I cannot stop the tears. She’s been a part of my life from the very beginning to this present moment.
She is My Sweet Mama’s sister next to her in age. She married my daddy‘s brother. She and Uncle Jesse have been the ones I go to when my heart has been hurting to see my own mama and daddy. They’ve probably seen me cry more than anyone else in these last 10 years (beside my husband). I know it’s time for her to go home, and I’m sure her family is “singing to her of Heaven” and I want to be glad that she knows the Author and Finisher of her faith—
And I am! I am!!!
But I have long dreaded this time, this day. And I am missing my own mama so intensely. This morning, I asked my beloved cousins, Shirley and Naomi, to get close to her ear and whisper that I loved her and that she should tell My Sweet Mama that I love her when she gets there.
I don’t really know what happens on the other side, but I believe that My Sweet Mama is watching and eagerly anticipating her arrival as part of that “Great Cloud Of Witnesses!” Once again Aunt Gladys will hold her beloved sons, Robert and Joseph who have been gone now for almost 48 years. She will see her own Mama and Papa, and her oldest brother, Harold, and her oldest sister, Orpha, as well as My Sweet Mama, already there.
She told me just last week that she wanted to go to Heaven, so she’s getting what she wants. She’s getting what she has given her 93 years to, and that is to see the face of Jesus and to hear “Well done, Good and Faithful Servant”. And so I’m not sad for her. She has lived faithfully and well, she has laughed and loved and forgiven and for her, this is sweet victory.
About 30 minutes after I wrote this, I received word that Aunt Gladys had Gone HOME. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” Psalm 116:15
It was a Saturday of catching up with home responsibilities. The week had been a whirlwind of so many exciting things, but laundry was not one of them! Monday I found out that my brother, Nelson, and his good wife, Rose, were coming to Delaware for a Breakfast for the women and wives of the Mark and Alene Yoder family. I was so surprised and delighted. It’s such an honor to have my brothers and their wives stay in our house. My brothers genuinely love my husband, and I dearly love their wives, so it’s a win/win situation. We had a lovely time, and I even got to win two games of Penny Domines (they keep reminding people that I was the score keeper, so, obviously . . . ) But I digress.
After Nelson and Rose pulled out on Wednesday morning, I found my phone and realized I had missed a call from my son, Lemuel. Jessica had texted her mother, Lynn, and me the night before that she was having a serious flair, that they were treating it aggressively but that she was not responding, that they were trying to keep her out of the hospital and that they might need some help. I had said that I would be available last week if they needed me, but that the last week of February was full of appointments and I could hardly get away then. This phone call was in response to that offer. Lem had left voice mail, and I looked at the transcript, then promptly listened to the message. My heart caught as he asked if I really was available for another “day trip,” that he felt terrible asking, but—and then I heard his voice break but he plowed on after a hesitation and said something about the need, then apologized for getting emotional – and I knew immediately that I was going to Washington as soon as I could get off.
And I did. I went in safety, had a splendid two days, Jessica started responding to the increase in medication and so on Friday evening I came home, again in safety, and crashed onto my beloved laZboy chair. Shew! It felt good to be home. (Do any of you other Mamas of my generation wonder why there are no comfortable chairs in the homes of their adult children? I mean, really??? It wouldn’t take me two weeks to get a chair that I could sit into and get out of without feeling like a spectacle of aging)!
And then it was Saturday. Certain Man had everything in order as far as housekeeping was concerned. He had Flori come over and sweep the floor (it was obvious she had done more than just that) and things looked really good. But there was an agitating amount of laundry to do, there was one lonely crust of bread in the bread basket, and I finally bestirred myself to get on with the tasks at hand.
The evening moved in, and the last of the laundry was folded, and the bread was out of the oven and the house smelled so good. There is something about the smell of bread baking that makes me think about home, and My Sweet Mama, and how easy everything was back then for a little girl who loved jelly bread and milk. I had a sudden memory of the old tin of King Syrup that was always in our cupboard.
I remember My Sweet Mama, buttering a slice of bread and putting King Syrup on it for me. Oh, how good a fresh piece of homemade bread tasted with butter and King Syrup on it!
They still make King Syrup, only it comes in plastic bottles now. I always have a bottle of it in my kitchen and use it in place of molasses in any recipe that calls for it, but particularly our family’s recipe of vanilla crumb pie. I also put it on bread to eat with certain soups. (This particular taste is not shared by Certain Man. He spreads the strawberry jam to the edges of his bread and looks askance at my choice of spread). But I stood there in my Saturday kitchen and thought about My Sweet Mama, and I sliced off a fresh slice of bread, buttered it up and slathered on the King Syrup. I ate it, standing at the sink in my clean kitchen and the memories of what once was, but could never be again swirled around my head and heart, and the moment was bittersweet, but strangely comforting.
The week had been a contradiction on so many fronts, and I marvel again at how grief and joy run parallel tracks on this road of life. I’ve discovered that we do not choose the pain that enters our journeys, but in all of this, we can choose to see and acknowledge the joy. It makes the difference between hope and despair for me.
And sometimes a comforting slice of homemade bread with butter and King Syrup is helpful.
It is no secret to my family that I have absolutely no discernment when it comes to cars. Is it little and blue with a bit of a snub to the rear end? “Hey, Look, Flori! Deborah’s car!!!” (Amused snicker. “No, Grammy, that is NOT Beeba’s car! It’s not even the same make!”) Is it a white SUV? “I think that must be Jesse and Christina’s car!” (followed by a furious wave that dies to a conventional Delaware “Howdy” upon seeing that the handsome black driver is neither of them). Is that a red minivan? It must be my sister, Sarah! (I wonder what she is doing in Milford tod–? Oh, sorry. Not her, after all)!
Now there have been several parking lot mix-ups when I’ve tried to get into the wrong silver minivan, and when I’ve traversed the parking lot looking for said vehicle, but usually I come out of it feeling foolish, but at least without witnesses.
Well. This week I had some extra chicken soup and some canvas bags that I wanted to take in to Brandywine Counseling & Community Services Center, and decided that it would be as good a time as any to run it in on my way to Walmart yesterday morning. I loaded up the silver chariot and checked my list and was off. I pulled up to the center, parked, and surveyed the surroundings. A woman came out of the front door, and stopped beside the large trash bins and rummaged through until she found something that she had obviously stashed there before going inside. She came down the steps and sidled over to the van parked a parking space away and the guy in the front passenger’s seat rolled down the window an inch or two, and took the prize find—a perfectly good cigarette. The two of them talked through the window a minute, then she went over and got into the driver’s seat.
Huh! Well, I decided it was none of my nevermind, and I gathered my items, took them into the center, and conversed minimally with the ones in charge and then bid farewell, my spirit feeling that sort of lightness that I often feel when I find a place for some of the extra things in my fridge. I came carefully down the steps, and watched my feet as I came down the sidewalk so that I didn’t catch my toes on a crack and faceplant on this terribly windy morning.
We replaced the fob on our minivan a few months ago, and sometimes it doesn’t respond immediately to the urgent pushing on the unlock button, and it was really cold. I started pushing the unlock button as I came up to the minivan, watching the button to see if it would pop up. It wasn’t budging. I proceeded to hold it up close to the door handle and pushed it again and again.
Suddenly I heard a tapping. Insistent, almost frantic. Coming from the window in front of me. I raised my eyes from the lock button to see a surprised face looking at me from inside the van. What in the world? Believe me, a very surprised face looked back at the car occupants. I very hurriedly said, “Oh, I’m so sorry!!! Wrong car!!!” And was rewarded by a quizzical, silly smile. Then I did some more hurrying — away from the side of the van, back around the corner to where my own van was sitting complacently exactly where I left it ten minutes earlier.
I took my red faced self into my van and looked across the one empty parking place to where the offending vehicle smugly sat, and wondered how I could make such an embarrassing mistake.
I want to make something clear.
This was not a result of my lack of discernment when it comes to vehicles. I hadn’t noticed when I parked there, but the vehicle next to mine was a Silver Town and Country Minivan, just like my own. I’m not going to pretend it was in the same state of repair, but it was the same make and model and pretty much anyone could have made the same mistake.
It was dark and cold as I backed our minivan out of the garage at 6:00 Friday morning. I was headed to our DC family for the day, and the drive stretched ahead of me with two hours of solitude and the hope of some good music.
The moon hung full and bright in the western sky. It was a comforting reminder that some things never change. I reached for my car charger before turning on my music and realized that the two cords present were both for Daniel’s phone. I know my phone well enough to know that it would not handle running the GPS as well as playing my playlist before going dead – likely in the muddled streets of Washington, DC, leaving me in need of rescue. Oh, well. I decided it was going to be okay.
There were some appropriate songs that I could sing to encourage me on my way, there was no one to hear me, and it was just me and Jesus in that car. The miles rolled away, and in my rearview mirror the sun started to come up. The stark contrast between the moon in the darkened sky ahead of me and the breaking morn in the sky behind me was beautiful, and the colors of the sunrise gave the promise of a clear day.
I could not have asked for better traveling conditions that morning. The roads were clear, the traffic cooperative, and the sun was to my back. I came to Lem and Jessica’s house and pulled into the open space from the alley behind their house. I often come to DC loaded for a several day stay, but this was only for the day, so I could take it all in one trip, my trusty blue cooler on wheels trailing along behind me up the sidewalk to their house.
Stella met me at the door, wearing the Christmas pajamas her Auntie Chris had gotten for Yutzy Christmas. Oh, my heart! She has grown so much. She was incredibly happy, digging through a big bag of Valentine’s Day surprises from her Daddy and Mama. Our daughter in law, Jessica was there, finishing up her boring breakfast of the one of the few things her tummy is tolerating, oatmeal. Lem left shortly before I got there to do a presentation at a local school for parents and students. Jessica was trying to get her food down, and then she was hoping to work as much as possible.
Stella and I were looking forward to a great time together, and the day did not disappoint. We played Fish, and she solidly trounced me four out of five games (I managed to tie her on the last one, but it did little to reassure me that I’m not coming down with some disease of magnitude in the dementia realms). We did a simple craft in the afternoon and made some valentines for her family. We ate the soup that Grammy brought and some of Grammy’s bread, and interspersed through the day were intervals of interaction with her beloved Daddy and Mama. Out of 10, the day was a 10, and I was so grateful.
The evening got furhuddled and delayed because of a mixup in food delivery, and my intended 7:00 departure got pushed off until around 8:40, but I felt strangely at peace about everything. I have family members who cannot understand this, but I’ve lived long enough to decide that there are certain things that are out of my control and I might just as well not waste emotional energy on things I cannot control. I believe that my times, and especially the interruptions and delays are under the control of My Heavenly Father and He said He will work things out for my good if I set my affections on His Kingdom, and trust Him with the outcomes. So even though I got off later than I had planned, the ride home was uneventful (except that I realized just before the Bay Bridge that I wasn’t going to make it home unless I stopped and got some gas) and I listened to a Bible reading program that I’ve been enjoying since the first of the year. Once again, traffic was light, roads were clear and that moon? Well, it was a “Ghostly Galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas . . .” (from The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyles), and I remembered that Daniel had said that it was to be stormy on Saturday. But for the ride home, there was no rain, no tempest, just a pull towards a little farm called Shady Acres and the Man That I Love Best.
I pulled into the familiar driveway around 10:40, and came into the house, tugging my now empty cooler behind me. The sight that greeted me first was a bouquet of red, pink and white carnations, sitting squarely in the middle of the counter!
It was absolutely stunning and I caught my breath at its beauty. I was pretty sure that he was going to get me the traditional Valentines Day bouquet, but it got me to thinking about these 51+ years that we’ve been married. It’s interesting to me how things change with the years, how love begins to be something intrinsically different that what brought us together all those years ago. I’ve heard it said so often how in those early years there is youth and energy and passion and a hope for the future that drives so much of what we do. And then in the middle years it’s “Love is more than feelings. It’s fixing bikes and painting ceilings.” Now we no longer can even pretend that we are in the middle years. These two 71 year old people find that love is the quiet companionship of an evening at home in our chairs. It’s getting a sub to share at home instead of looking for a fancy dinner out to celebrate. It’s trying to figure out how to deal with the bumps in the road that growing older has brought, and it’s knowing, without speaking a word when the other is in pain. It’s wishing we could fix the things that are different and “wrong” that remind us of our mortality in ways we’ve never had to think about before. And it’s the wonderful feeling of being home safe and sound and together after one or the other is away.
I don’t know about your worlds, dear friends. But there has been a significant amount of heartache and joy running straight parallel in our lives the last five years. It’s easy to focus on the heartache, and I’m not suggesting we ignore it. I am suggesting that it has been helpful to me to recount the blessings that we’ve been given, and to think on the things listed in Phillipians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
In our perilous times, when we are drawn into much that is none of the above, could we as the followers of Jesus seek to align our thinking with that sort of a list? I certainly want to try.
Also, I’ve never been a person that picks a word for the year, but as this year has progressed along, I have chosen a word that I want to live by. That word is “Hope.” It feels like a lot of us are mighty short on hope. I cannot change the world, but I want to be a catalyst in my corner for good, and I need hope to do that.
Delaware Grammy 